Rutgers: Extraordinary example for a father to set

Published 7:05 pm, Friday, June 17, 2011

A warrior in the service of humanity, dedicated to saving life and promoting peace, this father is Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish who lost three of his eight children and a niece on January 16, 2009. They were blown into pieces when an Israeli tank opened fire upon the Abuelaish family home during Israel's attack on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. Two of his other children were severely wounded.

How many could experience such devastating loss and not feel hatred toward the perpetrators of injustice? And not desire revenge?

Dr. Abuelaish refuses to succumb to hatred. "Hatred is an illness," he says. "It prevents healing and peace."

I had the honor of meeting Dr. Abuelaish this past March while my journalist husband researched a story about him. We joined the doctor at the end of his book tour promoting his recent memoir "I Shall Not Hate."

In his book, Dr. Abuelaish describes growing up in the refugee camp, his thirst for education, the challenges involved in pursuing a residency at an Israeli hospital, the humiliation regularly suffered at the border crossing into Israel and the difficulties of life in Gaza.

He also describes the obstacles and degradation he faced trying to enter Israel when returning from abroad while his wife was dying from leukemia in an Israeli hospital. By the time he arrived, she had slipped into a coma.

At the core of this memoir are the deaths of his daughters and niece during what he refers to as the "craziness" of the Israeli attack on Gaza. This attack was retaliation for the 8,600 rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip between 2001 and January 2009 that killed 28 Israelis and wounded hundreds more.

Israeli retaliation killed between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians, destroyed 4,000 Palestinian homes, caused tens of thousands of Palestinians to become homeless and left more than 400,000 without running water.

Although working on a book since 2005, Dr. Abuelaish believes the book he was meant to write was not ready to be written until his daughters were killed.

"Each of them was a special world," he said of his three daughters during an interview with my husband. He spoke about how much he misses Aya's "laughs, her jokes, her wisdom" and called Bessan "my treasury" and "a peacemaker." Mayar dreamed "to follow my path" and become a doctor.

Bessan was 21, Mayar 15 and Aya 14.

Dr. Abuelaish described the moment of their death. "They became fragments," he said. Less than five seconds after he left their room there was "dust, smoke, chaos" as the whole house shook. "What will be inside the room?" he asked.

Mayar was decapitated. "The bright mind spread over the ceiling."

In his book, he describes a room splattered with blood and "arms in familiar sweaters and legs in pants that belonged to these beloved children leaned at crazed angles where they had blown off the torsos."

A deeply committed Muslim, Dr. Abuelaish believes he must turn this horror into something good and that God spared his life for this purpose.

He does not blame individual Israelis, rather a system in desperate need of healing.

As for the soldier who shelled his house, Dr. Abuelaish says he may ask himself, "What have I done?" But if not now, "Tomorrow he will be a father. He will suffer for his actions when he sees how precious is the life of his child."